A few months ago, I was sitting with the Lord in our little Cambodian guesthouse room listening to podcasts about pretty much everything. I came across one by Amanda Cook from Bethel, and she was sharing some of her secrets to song writing. One of the highest values in my life is vulnerability – an HONEST transparency revealing who you truly are and how you feel. When I heard Amanda say these things in regards to how she writes songs, it made so much sense why she’s one of my favorite worship leaders.
“I’m far more interested in a song that has heart and is crafted poorly, than one that feels like it’s trying too hard to be something it’s not. The bottom line is that it must have heart. The strongest statements about who you are already live inside of you – they’re already there. The world is watching for, in fact, the world needs authenticity.”
This world craves something REAL.
And that’s all I ever want to offer the world – my true, authentic self. I’ve done the whole “stuff your true self down and act certain ways around certain people” thing, and let me tell you, it’s EXHAUSTING, and it makes me feel dead inside.
We know what people want to see, and we know how to give it to them. Sometimes, we know the right answers so well that we don’t acknowledge our own answers. Like “What do you believe?” – you may know the right answer or the answer people want to hear, but is it the answer that comes out of your heart? Is that really what YOU believe?
In an effort to see what’s REALLY going on in my heart, I issued myself a challenge to find the “Most Honest Statement” of my heart for each day and to write it down. It varies from subject to subject (God, relationships, desires, dreams) – sometimes simple, sometimes poetic – but it’s ALWAYS authentic.
My Honest Statement // May 9th // Thailand :
“It hurts so bad to hope in You, but I’ll choose to trust You, even if it kills me.”
I haven’t liked everything that’s come out of my heart. It gets raw, guys. It’s real stuff. For like a week straight, it was complaints, really melodramatic complaints to the Lord about situations I was in, but it was really how I was feeling. Other times it was about heartbreak or lost love. When I acknowledged that all that junk was in my heart, I knew I had to get it out. I began to ask the Lord to clear it all out and replace it with joy and thanksgiving – AUTHENTIC joy and thanksgiving. And you know what? He did! The next few days, my honest statements were about trusting Him, and it wasn’t fabricated. It came from a REAL place, and I meant it with my whole heart.
Last night, my most authentic statement scared me. It surfaced issues I wanted to stuff way deep down inside me – to a place where even I didn’t have to look at it. But it came up like word vomit as my Most Honest Statement. I broke my own rule and tried to think of something else that I could pass off as “more honest”, but I knew what had surfaced in my heart was from an authentic place – even though I didn’t like it.
**So, I challenge YOU, my readers. Think of the MOST HONEST STATEMENT in your heart today, and write it down. Even if it’s scary, even if it has cuss words, even if it’s completely overflowing with bubbly happiness – as long as it’s AUTHENTIC.** Don’t be afraid to get creative, like putting it in a journal and adding watercolor art or Polaroid pictures, but just keep your statement REAL.
I want to encourage you with this picture I saw from the Lord as I grew discouraged about what was in my heart.
There was a potter forming a beautiful vase and designing it intricately. The Potter looked at me and smiled. For some reason, I knew it was the Lord, and that He was about to teach me something. “This is you,” He said to me. As the newly formed vase continued to spin on the wheel, He reached in His hand and pulled out a lump of “gunk” and thew it on the ground. I looked at the pile of gunk on the ground, turned to Him, and said “That was in me?! Oh my goodness, I’m so so sorry!” I continued to stare in disbelief at the gunk on the ground. He redirected my attention to His wheel. “The gunk is not you. THIS is you. Don’t ever forget that.”
My friend, YOU are NOT the gunk that God takes out of your life – whether it be addictions or bad attitudes – that’s not you. That’s the gunk that may be IN you, but it’s not your identity. Get your eyes off the gunk and watch Him form you into the marvelous creation He’s creating you to be! It’s going to be an incredible sight and such an amazing gift to this world.
In this vision I had about the Potter, I saw many pots and vases that we’re happy with their dirt because other pieces of pottery had dirt too. Some even looked good from the outside, but had so much gunk on the inside that you could hardly tell at first glance that there was anything wrong with them. They didn’t allow the Potter to clean them out and make them all they were meant to be because they weren’t willing to embrace the process.
This is such a good way to have a heart-check, and to figure out what’s REALLY going on inside of us. Let’s get real, raw, and honest with ourselves… And write our hearts out.
#writeyourheartoutchallenge
